The Key Attributes to Drive Sales with Your Content Marketing

Summary/Introduction

In the online world, business communication plays an important role because it helps customers become aware of your products and services. If customers aren’t aware of who you are, where to find you, and what you do, there’s little to no chance they’ll do business with you.

One way to get your brand out there is through content marketing strategies such as websites, blogs, and social media which help businesses increase sales by elevating visibility, boosting effective leads, and promoting your brand to your ideal target.

Using content marketing includes the use of different digital marketing tools which help businesses communicate effectively with their customers and provide them with a better user experience while they are on your website.

In this article, we’ll go over the various types of content marketing and how to measure the success of your online marketing strategy.

When you finish reading this article, you will understand how content marketing works and how to use it effectively to drive sales for your business

Content Marketing Tips: What Are the Goals of Content Marketing

Now, more than ever, your online marketing plays a huge role in attracting customers to your website. A good website should not just be a place for people to see your menu, discover your services, or learn more about you. It needs to be an effective tool to drive sales for your business.

One of the most effective online marketing strategies is content marketing. This form of marketing focuses on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online.

Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of online material such as videos, blogs, and social media posts which not only promote a brand but also helps businesses to increase sales. These online materials serve to attract potential customers and users in a unique way and ultimately drive sales.

For example, The Digital Navigator uses different content marketing mediums such as videos, blogs, articles, and images to communicate with our clients on our website. Not only does it allow us to enhance user experience but also allows our clients to get a better understanding of our services.

Of all the different online marketing strategies, content marketing strategy allows business owners to reach their goals in an innovative approach.

Just as your business has a sales focus, you should also consider content marketing as it helps your business’s bottom line in similar ways, such as:

• Higher visibility: with digitally optimized content, your website or blog can be positioned better on search engine results if you use relevant keywords. This not only increases traffic increases traffic but also gives you a competitive advantage and helps you increase sales.
• Increase in traffic: your online content allows you to advertise your business or brand to create and enhance the awareness and exposure of your products and services. By doing this, the customer flow to your website will increase, creating opportunities for you to increase your sales volume and drive sales.
• Improve brand image: a well written online content piece will not only help you build an increased trust level with your users but also helps them find information about your products/services.
• Gain leads: This is one of the most important reasons why businesses do content marketing. The ability to acquire leads and customer information will not only convert to boost sales but also allows businesses to retarget potential customers through newsletters and email subscriptions.
• Customer ease of use and loyalty: as you know, it is not always about selling your products and services online to increase sales for your business, but also about the customer having a positive experience. A loyal customer is looking for a pleasant interaction with your website where they can discover valuable content or reach out for support.

What Are Some Things to Consider Before You Write Content

Your website is an introduction or a gateway to your business while the website content is a portal to your customers. An effective website not only serves as a way for customers to build interest in your business but also puts them on the right path for your end goal.

A good website is not just one that looks good, but one that manages to get quality leads and increase sales by converting those leads into customers.

In the digital world, content writing refers to the process of planning, writing, and editing content specifically for digital marketing purposes. It can include various content such as blog posts, articles, video scripts, and podcasts which are published on social media platforms and the business’s website.

For example, when credible news websites write content for their website, they try to address the problems, provide reasoning of the issue and give readers an accurate image of the news. In addition, it also provides users with a solution or useful information to make them aware of any action they may need to take.

Content writing is extremely beneficial for businesses as it is a tool to improve sales process as it makes customers aware of your business and influences their buying decision which drives sales.

Your online content is as important as the design and aesthetics of your website because it influences search engine results, increases traffic to your page, and builds credibility in your business.

Here are a few factors which you should consider before writing and publishing content on your website:

• Customers: the primary aim of your content is to nurture the relationship with prospective customers. Getting their attention is important, so you can drive sales to your website. Identifying your customer and their needs will improve the sales process for your business because your content will be catered towards their needs.
• Purpose and goal: identify your website’s purpose and goal. This is a crucial factor because it will help you identify the direction of your content. Whether it is to make customers aware of your services, provide them with a socializing medium, or simply to boost sales, knowing the goal and purpose allows you to be better positioned to write content that will help you achieve that goal.
• Research competitor’s website: learning about your competitors and their website helps you understand their content marketing strategy which gives you an idea on how to improve sales and how to increase revenue for your business. It also allows you to gain competitive advantage as you can write relevant content based on providing better products and services.

What Are the Exact Content Parameters That Google Desires

Contrary to what some might think, not all content is created equal. First, you’ll want to make sure that your content marketing strategy aligns with Google’s requirements, as well as being on-brand for your company and sales goals.

By following Google’s parameters, this allows your website to be in a better position in search engines results and also ensures that your content is relevant.

The parameters set by Google may seem tedious and even arbitrary to some, but they are there to ensure great quality of content. There is nothing worse than searching for something and discovering that the highest results are irrelevant to your needs.

Below are some content marketing tips from Google that will help you with creating the best content for your website:

• Write well and often: a website that is updated regularly and frequently encourages your users to return. This allows both old and new traffic to flow to your website.
• Categorize your posts: using relevant tags and labels are a helpful way to organize your content and encourage users to browse your blog. When content is organized, it allows users to find relevant and valuable content related to their interest with ease.
• Create descriptive titles: this not only provides a better user experience as it can be easily understood by users, but it also creates a unique URL for each post. This gives search engines dynamic, essential, and valuable information about the content of your page.
• Connecting with your online community: online presence is important to create a rich network, as it allows your website to be easily accessible and communicate with your users.

  By visiting vlogs, commenting and participating in discussions and contributing to web forums with your subject matter will encourage readers and users to visit your website.

• Publish a feed of your content: publishing feeds of your content allows users to be notified whenever you update your website. This makes users excited for new content as they can view it with minimal effort.

  This service is provided by blogging software, in which you are given the option of publishing a full feed or a partial feed. Using a full feed allows users to read the full content, while a partial feed gives users a teaser paragraph where they have to visit your website to read the full article.

How To Decide What to Write About

Content is the front face of your website that most importantly, gives you a hand in achieving your business’s marketing goals. A content strategy is an online marketing strategy that will provide you a plan for what, where, and when the content will go on your website.

Capturing your users’ interest with a well-written website content can be a challenge for some. Well-versed content that is optimized for the web is ideal as it results in a better position on search engines and grabs the user’s attention.

It is important to write about content that is relevant to your business or website. For example, at The Digital Navigator, we are experts in SEO and website development services which is the basis on which we write about. Since we target business owners, we address the issues they face when creating their website and provide them with valuable content relevant to their needs.

Having a solid website content strategy is vital in today’s digital world, as it drives sales by an increase in traffic driven by quality content.

The following are some content marketing tips that can help you decide your website’s content, which not only increases traffic to your website but will also increase sales for your business:

• Identify your unique value proposition: your website should answer the why and how of your business, explaining how your products or services provide value to your customers.

  In addition to the value proposition, your content should be targeted and relevant to your customers so it is unique and helps you differentiate from your competitors.

• The 5 W’s and 1 H of content marketing strategy: although these may seem basic, it helps you to write content that is catered to what you do and who your target audience is, and what you want to achieve.
  • Why – Know the business case and objectives. Why are you embarking on this project?
  • What – What is the message?
  • Who – Who is the audience?
  • Where – Where will the message be read (location, device, context)?
  • When – Timing of the process to create and publish the content.
  • How – How should we present/structure the content?
• Target each of your personas: it is essential to create content for your website with your different audiences in mind, since they are the prime target for your content. These personas not only help you understand the type of people you are targeting but also understand buyer behavior.

  By determining these buyer personas, you can create personalized content that caters and targets their needs, interests, and goals.

• Use the right language: it is important to speak the same language as your audience, since they are the prospective clients who are going to influence your business. You should avoid using internal jargon and use verbiage that your audience will understand. Your website content should use easily digestible language and be more conversational than formal, so clients can resonate with your content.

Measuring the Success of your Online Marketing Strategy

When conducting online marketing strategies such as content marketing and website content, it is important to measure its success.

Measuring success of your online marketing strategy shows you how well your campaigns are tracked towards Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). They are an important element of any campaign as they give a better picture of whether your content marketing strategy is a success or not.

They help businesses understand how their campaigns are driving towards their business goals and allows them to make decisions for optimizing their campaigns and marketing channels. These metrics can also tell businesses how to improve sales and how to increase revenue in case they are performing poorly.

The following are some content marketing tips to measure the success of any online marketing strategy:

• Identifying your KPIs: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for blog posts and articles could be the website traffic, page views, or bounce rate. Meanwhile, a KPI for emails would be open rate, conversion rate, and subscribers. It is all about making your KPI measurable and being able to show you the results of your online marketing strategy.
• Return On Investment (ROI): there are different ROI factors such as leads, sales, and revenue for every content marketing strategy. If sales focus and revenue are your main concern, you need to track the long customer journey to purchase. Whereas, if your focus is on social media engagement, you may want to track the conversion to prove your content marketing ROI.
• Setting benchmarks: benchmarks not only show you how well you are performing but also help you see changes in metrics like subscribers, sales, and social mentions. This allows you to improve or set different strategies.
• Number of leads: this is a great benchmark to increase sales as it allows you to find website conversion rates, traffic leads, and sales.
• Competitors: setting benchmarks against your company’s rivals not only helps you create healthy competition but also helps in search engine rankings.
• Conversion: conversion is another clue to brand awareness, authority, and customer attitudes. It relies on establishing a benchmark and then measuring by what percentage these conversions increase or decrease.
• Engagement: unlike conversions, engagement is an important solution to explore unquantifiable attitudes towards your business. It allows you to track comments, likes, and shares and also data such as how you are mentioned and what kind of shares and comments you are getting.

Tips for Successful Content Marketing

Content marketing is not only an online marketing strategy that drives sales but also increases the volume of traffic to your website. If your content marketing strategy is strategized and executed properly, it will convert your users into leads and then ultimately into sales.

The most effective way to drive traffic to your website is through content marketing by developing blogs, social media campaigns, and videos. The more users engage with your website, the more likely they are to develop trust in your brand and become a prospect and client. This leaves you with a sales focus in content marketing and an opportunity to increase sales.

The following are some content marketing tips that help you run a successful campaign:

• Length and frequency of publishing: generally, long-form content has been the most effective, as it outperforms short form content by 40.54%. The effective length is dependent on the goals of your business. For instance, if you are looking to get social share of your article, 600-1,500 words are ideal whereas if you want to rank your article on Google for search engine purposes, 2,500 would be perfect.
• Type of content formats: case studies, press releases, e-books, blogs, videos, webinars, and infographics are just a few examples of popular content marketing formats.

  These formats allow businesses to diversify how their content is being used in websites, enhancing user experience, and inflow of traffic.

• Content Distribution Channels and Promotion: the type of channel and promotion you use for your online marketing strategies plays a major role in how your content is being viewed, as it reaches different types of audiences using these channels.For instance, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are ideal channels for websites, blogs, and social media sites while YouTube, Instagram, and Vimeo are perfect channels for visual content such as videos, pictures, and infographics.

Conclusion

There is no doubt how online marketing strategies help both the business and users deliver and understand content. With the diverse uses and purposes of content marketing, it not only increases sales but also provides a better user experience and guides businesses on how to improve sales.